Who Makes or Breaks a Scandal?

Executive Summary

On May 25, after months of White House delays over declassification,
a special House task force led by Reps. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) and
Rep. Norman Dicks (D-Wash.) released its final report on the Chinese
government’s theft of nuclear warhead and missile secrets. But it made
almost no difference in the calculated indifference to the Chinese
espionage story at ABC, CBS, and NBC. NBC Nightly News ultimately aired only two stories on the Cox committee findings, while ABC’s World News Tonight and CBS Evening News
aired three. The Media Research Center has identified the following
network methods in deflating the Chinagate story, which stand in stark
contrast to their approach to covering the Iran-Contra scandal.

1. Hard news coverage: When forced to include the story, keep it brief.
The night of the Cox Report’s release, the Big Three aired five
stories, but only ABC led with it. On November 18, 1987, the night of
the release of the Iran-Contra report, all three networks began with it
and did five segments each, devoting more than half the newscast to the
ramifications.

2. News Analysis A: Spread the blame around to other Presidents.
When the White House allowed release of the Cox Report after censoring
some 375 pages, the report listed 11 cases of espionage, and noted
eight took place during the Clinton era. But the networks spread blame
equally across the last four administrations. When the Iran-Contra
report was released, TV reports seized on the majority report’s harsh
criticism of the Reagan administration.

3. News Analysis B: Downplay the findings as unproven or trumped-up.
The Iran-Contra report spurred a round of media lectures casting grave
doubts on the Reagan administration’s truthfulness and respect for the
law. But when the networks touched the Cox report, they suggested the
strategic picture was far too murky for grand conclusions, and labored
to avoid judging the Clinton administration’s competence or
truthfulness.

4. Follow-up coverage: Pretend the story doesn’t exist. Since May 28, only CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News
have aired a single story on Chinese espionage among the Big Three. The
isolated exceptions to the daily blackout dealt with the President’s
Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, chaired by former Sen. Warren
Rudman. The morning shows have aired less than a minute in total
coverage since the Cox Report, despite Fox News Channel’s continuing
efforts to report new developments. By contrast, the networks continued
to make Iran-Contra a political issue in both the 1988 and 1992
campaigns.

Introduction: The Power of Neglect

Who makes or breaks a scandal? On the June 20 Meet the Press,
former Republican Senator Warren Rudman explained his investigation of
Chinese espionage for the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory
Board this way: "It's hard for me to say this, but I will say it
anyway. The agenda for the body politic is often set by the media. Had
it not been for The New York Times breaking the story of
Chinese espionage, all over the front pages, I’m not sure I’d be here
this morning. I’m not sure that report would have been written. And
that is not the way that government ought to operate."

The media do not and cannot make scandals happen by themselves. For
scandals to penetrate the political culture, and travel from the
consciousness of Washington insiders to the public at large, other
actors, usually in government, must verify the scandal’s importance by
launching official investigations, which give the media an orderly
process to follow — if they choose to follow. Although newspaper
reporting led to official investigations, the scandal has not captured
the public’s attention. Why? Because 70 percent of Americans get all or
most of their news from television, and ABC, CBS, and NBC have buried
the story when they could, and downplayed its importance when they
couldn’t.

To probe the Chinese thefts of strategic technology, first broken in the April 15, 1998 New York Times,
the House of Representatives created a select committee to investigate
"U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the
People’s Republic of China." Five Republicans, led by Rep. Christopher
Cox, and four Democrats, led by Rep. Norman Dicks, were asked to
determine the severity of strategic damage done by two American defense
contractors in assisting Chinese satellite launches. In the midst of
their work, they discovered very serious espionage and security
breaches at America’s nuclear laboratories as well, which first came to
light in the March 6, 1999 New York Times, which noted the Chinese had lifted details of the W-88 nuclear warhead.

But when the committee released its findings — known as the Cox
Report — with a unanimous bipartisan set of conclusions and
recommendations on May 25, the networks barely noticed, disposing of
the findings with a story or two, often heavily laced with skepticism
toward the scandal’s seriousness. Then they dropped the story and
attempted no follow-up on the 700 pages of detail.

This is a vastly different media response to foreign-policy scandals
than was witnessed during the Reagan administration. When the joint
congressional investigation into Iran-Contra concluded in 1987, the
media erupted in outrage at a constitutional crisis. Put these
anguished reports side by side with the brief, dismissive dispatches on
Chinese espionage, and you have a case study in network news bias,
journalism in each case calculated to achieve a political advantage for
the Democratic Party.

That pattern of neglect continues to this day. The Big Three
neglected the President’s June 25 press conference admission his
"choice of wording was poor" in denying he knew of espionage on his
watch. Two days later, the New York Times struck again,
finding top officials learned of espionage losses in July 1995, months
before they claimed they were told. The broadcast network evening
newscasts were still silent.

What follows is a case-by-case elaboration of the double standard in foreign-policy scandal coverage. The Media Research Center
has identified the following network methods in deflating the Chinagate
story, especially in stark contrast to its Reagan-era methods. CNN was
not included in this study due to its broader 24-hour coverage of some
Chinagate details.

1. Hard News Coverage: When forced to include the story, keep it brief

Theoretically, the release of a summary of the Cox Report on
December 30, 1998 could have been the first occasion for in-depth
coverage, but it wasn’t. That night, ABC gave the story 22 seconds, NBC
26. Only CBS aired a full report. The night of the complete Cox
Report’s release, the Big Three evening shows aired five stories (ABC
2, CBS 2, NBC 1), and only ABC led with it. CBS and NBC led with
gun-control stories, and NBC also placed a New York City police
brutality trial in front of it. On November 18, 1987, the night of the
release of the Iran-Contra report, all three began with it and each did
five segments on it, devoting more than half the newscast to the
ramifications.

The Cox Report met the same one-down-and-punt fate on the morning shows. On May 25, ABC’s Good Morning America
aired a 1:45 piece about Cox at 7 a.m. by Linda Douglass and a 1:15
story by Ann Compton at 8 a.m., for a total of three minutes on
espionage. The show's first 7 a.m. half hour interview segment
dedicated eight minutes to a story about the dangers of professional
wrestling followed by an interview live from Calgary with the mother,
father, brother and widow of Owen Hart, a pro wrestler killed in a fall
from above a wrestling ring.

CBS’s This Morning interviewed Energy Secretary Bill
Richardson for about three minutes during the 7 a.m. half hour. Two
news stories at the top of the 8 a.m. half hour lasted four minutes and
24 seconds. Those seven minutes approximately equaled the seven minutes
CBS gave to a Georgia high school principal to discuss security
measures against school shootings. While Richardson took questions for
three minutes, William Shatner got nearly five to discuss his new book
about Star Trek fans, Get a Life.

NBC’s Today aired a news story by Joe Johns, a brief
interview with Tim Russert, and an Ann Curry anchor update at 8 a.m.,
totaling four minutes and 22 seconds. Curry called it "a huge and
devastating spy scandal," but the Owen Hart wrestling accident story
drew almost triple the air time, taking up 11 minutes of the 7:30 half
hour.

On May 26, all the morning shows conducted interviews with major
figures in the scandal. ABC and CBS interviewed Congressman Cox. NBC
brought on Congressman Dicks and Energy Secretary Richardson. (Once
again, the time allotted did not match more attractive Nielsen-grabbing
topics. ABC gave multiple segments to a family with sextuplets, CBS
gave more time to genetic testing and to a former nun in business, and
NBC spent more time with Geraldo Rivera on police brutality.) All told,
since the first Times warhead scoop on March 6 of this year,
the network morning shows have aired six interview segments on
Chinagate (not counting in-house network chats). All three interviewed
Richardson. NBC’s Today never interviewed a Republican. There have been no morning show interviews since May 26.

So what about the day after the report? Surely, the network evening
shows would put their Pentagon-beat producers to work reading through
these 700 pages to get a better look at what the Cox Report contained.
No. NBC was done. ABC did a story on the second night about how
suspected Chinese spy Wen Ho Lee will never be prosecuted. The next
night, CBS marked the end of the Big Three stories with a dismissive
Eric Engberg report (more on that in section #3).

But on Iran-Contra...

Compare that to November 18, 1987, the night the joint Iran-Contra
committees released their report. The networks each aired five segments
apiece, and devoted more than half the program to the probe and its
aftermath. Each network sounded the alarm in unison across their
Washington beats. The majority report dominated the analysis, and the
minority report was relegated to a few sentences.

ABC’s World News Tonight ran through Brit Hume at the White
House, Sam Donaldson on Capitol Hill, an interview with Republican Sen.
Warren Rudman, John Martin with the big picture, and Dennis Troute on
the court beat with Lawrence Walsh.

CBS Evening News began with Capitol Hill reporter Phil Jones,
followed by White House man Bill Plante, Eric Engberg on
still-unanswered questions, and court reporter Rita Braver. CBS ended
the half-hour with a summary/commentary from Capitol Hill reporter Bob
Schieffer. Not only that, CBS aired a half-hour late night report to
drive home the findings.

NBC Nightly News started with John Dancy on Capitol Hill,
Chris Wallace at the White House, an interview segment with then-Rep.
Dick Cheney and then-Sen. George Mitchell, court reporter Carl Stern,
and ended with a commentary by John Chancellor.

Clearly, these two reports seem different in political magnitude.
The Iran-Contra report’s release came at the end of a year of very
well-promoted political drama, complete with weeks of live hearings
coverage in the summer. Several network reports gave viewers an update
on all the people made at least temporarily famous by the hearings. By
contrast, the Cox committee did all their investigation in private,
holding no public hearings, and 30 percent of their report remained
classified. The White House delayed the report’s release for months.
After the report came out, Congressman Cox said on Fox News Sunday
that if they had caved in to administration demands, "there would be
nothing out" anyone could call a report, but the networks never pressed
the President to stop putting off the people’s right to know. The
scandal’s major figures remain nearly anonymous to Americans.

But the strategic magnitude of the charges in each case are also
dramatically different. Nothing in Iran-Contra threatened the security
of the United States. Iran used the missiles it acquired from the U.S.
to attack Iraq and the Nicaraguan rebels ultimately forced elections.
The Cox Report detailed a systematic theft of a gamut of strategic
secrets that directly threatens the United States and the balance of
power in Asia.

2. News Analysis A: Spread the blame around to other Presidents

Since March 6, 1999, when The New York Times revealed the
theft of nuclear-warhead secrets, President Clinton and his aides have
insisted that all or most of the espionage occurred in the Republican
administrations that preceded him. When the White House allowed release
of the Cox Report after censoring some 375 pages, the panel listed 11
cases of espionage, and noted eight took place during the Clinton era.
In the June 9 Investor’s Business Daily, Washington Bureau
Chief Paul Sperry reported that "the vast majority of leaks over the
past 20 years have sprung up on Clinton’s watch, and nearly all the old
leaks have shown up since then...At least 24 times, the declassified
version of the report states: ’The Clinton administration has
determined further information cannot be made public.’ Left out are
details about Chinese espionage that took place in the ‘mid-1990s’ or
‘late 1990s.’" But the networks made the administration line their own.

The night before the Cox Report came out, Dan Rather introduced the
story as long-leaked old news: "With twenty years worth of blame for
both Republicans and Democrats to go around, some in Congress are now
singling out Attorney General Janet Reno for what they see as her
failure to investigate the long-leaked nuclear secrets."

After the report was released, Rather briefly noted how the report
found lax security to this day, that the espionage goes back two
decades and four administrations, and that China did most of its spying
through students, scientists and visitors. Rather added: "Now
congressional Republicans and others have put a large share of blame on
President Clinton for all of this. In response, top Clinton
[administration] members dispute that. They say much of the stealing
was done during the Reagan and Bush years, and they claim that, secrets
are still spilling out of U.S. weapons labs, well they say that simply
isn’t true. They also question some of the report’s other findings and
criticisms." Seconds later, Rather promoted a report by David Martin
noting CBS was going "beyond the blame game."

On NBC, reporter Andrea Mitchell found one candidate’s outrage a
little surprising: "Although the report says the espionage began at
least under Jimmy Carter and went on under four Presidents including
George Bush, Bush’s son, a likely candidate, leaped to blame this White
House."

But on Iran-Contra...

On November 18, 1987, these networks did not hesitate to carry the
Iran-Contra majority report’s heated blame of the Reagan team. On NBC,
Tom Brokaw underscored the depth of the congressional investigation:
"After interviewing 500 witnesses, after 40 days of public hearings,
after reviewing 300,000 documents, the committees investigating the
Iran-Contra scandal today issued their final report signed by all of
the Democrats and three of the Republicans. There is no smoking gun, no
indisputable piece of evidence directly linking the President to the
diversion of proceeds from the Iran arms sales to the Contras. But this
report is a sharp indictment of the President and his men. According to
the report, the common ingredients of the scandal were secrecy,
deception, and disdain for the law. It went on to say that when the
goals and the law collided, the law gave way. And the report concluded
the ultimate responsibility for the results of the Iran-Contra affair
must rest with the President. NBC’s John Dancy reports tonight the two
committees blamed President Reagan again and again."

On CBS, Dan Rather took all the heated language blaming Reagan for
shredding the Constitution and made it his own. He began the newscast:
"Now it’s up to the special prosecutor and the grand jury.
Congressional investigators have put out their final official report.
In secretly sending weapons to Iran and looking after taxpayer money,
the report concludes that President Reagan failed to do what the
Constitution requires: that he is ultimately responsible for what
happened. From his secret policy of paying ransom to Iranians to swap
U.S. weapons for hostages, to the secret skimming of profits to
Nicaraguan rebels and others, that if he didn’t know, he should have.
The bipartisan majority also concluded flat out that top officials
around President Reagan plotted a coverup. From Capitol Hill, Phil
Jones begins our coverage of Congress’s conclusions about where the
money went, who got the cash, who broke the law, and what did President
Reagan know." (With Real Video)

Jones began like an echo: "And the final report of the Iran-Contra
committee released today laid the blame for the scandal in President
Reagan’s lap. It was, in the opinion of the majority who signed this
report, the President who had set the tone that allowed a cabal of
zealots to seize control. It was the President who had not lived up to
his constitutional responsibilities."

In a late night special titled "Divided Judgment," Rather
reiterated: "Congress had its say today about President Reagan’s secret
sale of arms to Iran and who got the money. A year after Mr. Reagan’s
weapons-for-Iran debacle exploded, the House and Senate select
committees put out their assessment of what went wrong and who was
responsible. For President Reagan, the words sting. The 700-page report
is filled with words such as ‘deception,’ ‘dishonesty,’ and ‘coverup.’
It talks about, and this a quote, a ‘cabal of zealots inside the White
House who believed the ends justified the means.’ The report tells of
disdain for the law. Top presidential aides destroying evidence and
other official documents, and contempt for the democratic process. It
talks about a President, at the very least, out of touch, neglecting
his constitutional responsibilities. A President making wrong
statements to the American people, and winding up in one of the worst
credibility crises in U.S. history. In the end, as Bruce Morton
reports, the congressional conclusion says responsibility for the
fiasco lies with Ronald Reagan."

Rather ended the special with the majority report's quotation of
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis: "Our government is the potent,
the omnipresent teacher, for good or for ill, it teaches the whole
people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a
law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law. It invites every man to become
a law unto himself. It invites anarchy."

3. News Analysis B: Obscure the findings as unproven or trumped-up

The Iran-Contra report spurred a round of media lectures casting
grave doubts on the Reagan administration’s truthfulness and respect
for the law. But these same networks downplayed the Cox Report,
suggesting the strategic picture after these espionage losses was far
too murky for grand conclusions, and labored to avoid judgment on the
Clinton administration’s competence or truthfulness.

There would be no lectures about the President’s meddling in a
criminal investigation of two defense contractors, one of whom was
headed by a major Democratic donor. None of the reports rained
criticism on the administration’s slow response to evidence of
espionage, or the President’s dishonest denials that he had been told
about espionage on his watch. Instead, some reporters dismissed the
report as overblown and under-documented.

On the May 27 CBS Evening News, reporter Eric Engberg’s
"Reality Check" implied that the Cox committee findings were far too
incomplete to be taken seriously: "As the release of the Cox Report
again demonstrated Washington’s love of a good spy story, the consensus
gelled: Chinese agents have stolen something. But after that many of
the report’s scary findings are open to question. Were actual weapons
plans among the purloined secrets? The report takes the worst case
view: Probably. But a blue ribbon panel of outside experts advising the
CIA looked at the same question and decided there is just no way to
know. The same group concluded the Chinese spying ‘has not resulted in
any apparent modernization of their deployed strategic force or any new
nuclear weapons deployment.’"

Engberg added: "Did the Chinese steal the key to building a neutron
bomb? Cox talks darkly about a theft, but like all the spy talk it’s
pretty murky." He concluded: "The Cox Report says China uncovered the
secrets of seven U.S. nuclear warheads, but the intelligence evidence
is unclear. It may be as low as four, two of which are obsolete. Amidst
all the voices raised in alarm there is a bottom line: Unlike many of
the things in the Cox Report there's no argument here. Number of
strategic nuclear weapons? U.S.: six thousand, China: less than two
dozen."

This is the same reporter who appeared on November 18, 1987 to
address the "unanswered questions" of the Iran-Contra report, not to
critique the report, but to attack an administration that threatened to
create "a private government beyond the reach of due process." On May
4, 1989, Engberg was in a familiar lecturing mode on Oliver North’s
Iran-Contra trial. Dan Rather announced that Engberg "has investigated
the use of secrecy, lying and deception as instruments of ideology and
policy." Engberg sermonized: "Once secrecy is embraced, rather than
public debate and compromise, the freewheeling covert operators can do
as they wish because an invisible policy can’t be questions....But
secrecy leads to deception...deception leads to lies. Lies tear apart
the rule of law." He then asked: "Could it happen again? Scholars say
yes, until Presidents accept the need to compromise with Congress."

Koppel’s Contrast. Unlike Engberg’s report, ABC Nightline
host Ted Koppel’s programs have included some worried talking heads.
(CIA counter-intelligence specialist Paul Redmond compared this case to
the Rosenbergs.) Koppel has offered a few tough questions. (He asked
National Security Adviser Sandy Berger about the dramatic increase in
foreign scientists at the nuclear labs.) But Koppel has offered very
few shows on Chinagate, and their tone has been mostly dismissive.

Although the first of the New York Times stories on missile
technology losses appeared on April 15, 1998, Koppel introduced his
first show on June 3, 1998 with this disclaimer: "It has the potential
of being a terrific conspiracy story. Several members of Congress,
including Speaker Gingrich, have called on President Clinton not to go
to China this month as planned until he answers to Congress. But the
story may not have the additional advantage of being true."

Koppel went to reporter Chris Bury, who began by contending: "For
all the sound and fury here in Washington, no concrete evidence has yet
emerged to support the two most damaging allegations. It is not certain
any classified missile technology was transferred to China. And no one
has produced any proof that President Clinton changed policy because of
campaign contributions."

Since the latest set of stories erupted in The New York Times on March 6, through July 2, Nightline
has devoted 48 of 85 shows to the war in Kosovo, but produced just
three shows that dealt with Chinagate. On March 12, Koppel explained
some of the allegations, then warned: "It all seems to fit so
perfectly, especially when you consider the additional charge that the
administration told an intelligence official at the Department of
Energy not to share what he knew with Congress. There is probably
plenty of incompetence and partisanship to go around, but it is not
quite as clear-cut as it may seem."

Koppel dropped the matter until ten weeks later. The night the Cox
Report came out, Koppel did not begin by scrutinizing the
administration, but by deploring the diplomatic state of affairs:
"There is, these days, a certain pouting sullen quality to
Sino-American relations in which each side is playing to its home
crowd. The Chinese should know that NATO planners and pilots never
intended to bomb their embassy in Belgrade, but they’ve deliberately
been acting as though they knew it was intentional. We, on the other
hand, are shocked to learn that the Chinese have been stealing every
military secret of ours that they can lay their hands on. We might more
appropriately be shocked were we to discover that the United States is
not doing everything it can to steal Chinese military secrets."

Koppel and Bury deplored the scandal’s political effects. Bury
concluded one report: "Now that the highly damaging report is finally
out, the administration is on the defensive, of course, and Republicans
on the attack. Once again, much of Washington is engaging in one of its
favorite rituals, the search for someone, anyone, to blame." After a
commercial break, Koppel added: "The Cox Report makes clear that
China’s spying on US nuclear secrets occurred during the watch of two
Democratic and two Republican Presidents. You’d think that might cut
down on the political opportunism. Think again."

On June 28, Nightline devoted a half-hour, not to exploring
the veracity of the espionage charges, but how Asian-Americans are
discriminated against thanks to the scandal. The Nightline Web
site described the show: "It’s not a great time to be Asian-American in
the United States. So often, it seems, the face of wrongdoing, the face
of evil, has been Asian."

But on Iran-Contra...

On November 17, 1987, the night before the Iran-Contra report’s
release, Koppel started the media chorus in putting the onus of blame
on Ronald Reagan: "From the public genesis of the Iran-Contra affair —
when Attorney General Meese announced that U.S. weapons had been sold
to Iran, and the profits from those arms sales had been diverted to the
Nicaragan contras — from the beginning, the central question has been
that echo from Watergate: how much did the President know and when did
he know it? Tomorrow, the congressional Iran-Contra committtees release
their findings, apparently without any conclusive answer to that
question. But early leaks, and what would Washington be without leaks
of one kind or another, suggest that the majority findings are not kind
to President Reagan. Reportedly, one conclusion is that the President
may indeed have been aware of possibly illegal diversions, and if he
didn’t know, then he should have. If that sounds rather familiar, even
stale, it has nevertheless enraged a number of Republican Congressmen
and Senators, who have issued a dissenting report."

Later in that show, Koppel shared his puzzlement with then-Rep. Dick
Cheney about why Republicans would dissent from a report that charged a
cabal of Republican zealots had no respect for the law or the
Constitution: "To begin with, Congressman, I’m not so sure that I
understand what it is you object to so violently. Basically, it sounds
to me — and I haven’t seen the majority report, you have — as though
the committees have come up with fundamentally the same conclusion as
the Tower Report reached, namely that the President was disengaged."

Koppel tried to get Cheney to agree "that there were a number of
people who were making end runs around the Constitution, and that the
President was disengaged, and then add one third element, namely, that
the President should not have been disengaged and should not have
permitted his senior staff to be making those end runs, don’t we then
come a little closer to what the majority report seems to be saying?"

In the past two years, Koppel hasn’t been in the habit of asking
questions about whether President Clinton has been disengaged, or
whether he was involved.

4. Follow-up Coverage: Pretend the story doesn't exist

Since May 28, three days after the Cox committee reported, only CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News
have aired a single story on Chinese espionage among the Big Three,
despite ongoing congressional investigations and government reform
initiatives. The isolated exceptions to the daily blackout dealt with
the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, chaired by former
Sen. Warren Rudman. Only CBS Evening News covered the initial report on June 15, and only NBC Nightly News
caught up with a full story when Rudman appeared before an
unprecedented four-committee Senate hearing on June 22. (CBS did note
that development for 42 seconds.) NBC Nightly News gave 19 seconds each to developments on June 25 and 27. ABC’s World News Tonight aired nothing in all of June. The morning shows also have aired less than a minute on Chinagate since May 26. ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today each gave the Rudman report 23 seconds on June 16.

The blackout comes despite the Fox News Channel’s continuing efforts
to report new developments. Take a look at recent FNC stories the Big
Three networks could have been pursuing:

May 24: A Beijing-Coordinated Coverup? The day before the Cox
Report release, reporter Carl Cameron found evidence suggesting a
capital-to-capital coverup strategy. In a transcript of a call to
Johnny Chung, Chinese operative Robert Luu told Chung to credit the
source of donations to the "princelings" (children of People’s
Liberation Army officers in front companies). Luu said: "Chairman Jiang
agreed to handle it like this. The President over here also agreed."
(Clinton and Jiang were meeting when the call took place.) Imagine the
reaction if someone had charged that Ronald Reagan had agreed on spin
control with the Ayatollah. Big Three network coverage? Zero.

May 27: More Labs Investigated. Cameron outlined his
exclusive: "FBI counter-intelligence sources have told Fox News about
two more previously undisclosed open investigations into Chinese
nuclear espionage at the national labs during the Clinton
administration. Sources say both the Argonne National Labs in Illinois
and Idaho and the Sandia National Lab in New Mexico have been
compromised and that both weapons secrets and detonation technology
have been passed to China since 1993." Cameron added that 80 House
members led by Republicans Cliff Stearns and J.D. Hayworth demanded the
resignations of National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and Attorney
General Janet Reno over their handling of Chinagate. Big Three network
coverage? Zero.

June 3: Testing a Second Missile. Cameron reported: "This has
caught U.S. military and intelligence officials off guard. China now
plans to move up its development timetable and later this year will
test not one, but two new intercontinental ballistic missiles capable
of hitting the U.S. The second is particularly surprising because it
comes years before any U.S. analyst had predicted China would be able
to do it and because of how similar it will be to the top weapon in the
U.S. arsenal." Cameron added: "Frustrated FBI agents say the Justice
Department should have already asked a grand jury to indict fired Los
Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee. Counter-intelligence sources say a sting
operation caught Lee mishandling secrets in 1997." Big Three network
coverage? Zero.

June 8: O’Leary’s Leak. Cameron reported allegations made by
Republicans on the Cox committee, such as Rep. Curt Weldon: "Now come
allegations that former Clinton administration Energy Secretary Hazel
O’Leary leaked classified nuclear weapons information personally in
1995 to U.S. News & World Report. After the magazine
published this classified design information on the W-87 warhead, an
investigation began to find the leak. Sources say DOE brass abruptly
canceled the probe to prevent O’Leary embarrassment. Lawmakers now want
that suspected cover up investigated." Big Three network coverage? Zero.

June 9: Deliberate Incompetence? A week-and-a-half after he
promised to fire Energy Department officials responsible for lost
secrets (a promise he has yet to fulfill), Energy Secretary Bill
Richardson appeared before the Senate’s Select Committee on
Intelligence. It was an open hearing with cameras taping footage any
network could use, but only one bothered. Richardson told Senators he
opposes new security proposals because they "undermine and micro-manage
him."

Cameron moved on: "The chief of Energy Department
counter-intelligence, Ed Curran, accompanied Richardson and found
himself under fire for claiming several days ago that the Senate knew
about China's spying in 1996 and failed to act. The Vice Chairman of
the committee, Democrat Bob Kerrey, scolded Curran for being both
inaccurate and too partisan." Kerrey said: "It carried a tone that
sounded as if it was written by the political shop over at the White
House." Cameron added: "Curran sat by and watched as his boss
acknowledged that the comments and the facts were wrong."

Cameron explained how the House unanimously passed new security
measures proposed in the Cox Report and then concluded with exclusive
information about more malfeasance: "In rare closed-door testimony, Fox
News has learned that frustrated rank and file FBI agents told
lawmakers that they found ample evidence of Chinese espionage, but felt
thwarted by senior Justice Department officials. Now sources say
lawmakers will look into the possibility of what’s called, quote,
‘deliberate incompetence’ by Justice Department officials to sweep it
under the carpet." Big Three network coverage of any of this? Zero.

June 10: Trie Destroyed Evidence. Cameron reported how
Charlie Trie destroyed documents, which was reported in newspaper
accounts of his plea deal, but not mentioned elsewhere on TV, and added
fresh information about how the FBI was thwarted:

"The President appointed his long-time friend and fundraiser Charlie
Trie of Little Rock to a trade commission to deal with Hong Kong and
other Asian nations. Trie has pleaded guilty to fundraising violations
and is cooperating with investigators, but in 1997 FBI surveillance
observed Trie’s employees destroying evidence in the campaign
fundraising investigation. At the time, the Justice Department sent two
officials to Little Rock to get search warrants and intervene. But on
the eve of Senate hearings into campaign finance abuse, the Justice
Department pulled back on the warrants and the search of Trie’s office
and frustrated FBI agents watched as more documents were destroyed."
Big Three network coverage? Zero.

June 25: Clinton Admits Poor "Choice of Wording." At a
late-afternoon press conference, FNC’s Wendell Goler asked: "Do you
still maintain that you were not told anything about these Chinese
efforts to spy at the nation’s nuclear labs during your
administration?" Clinton claimed he’d learned of Wen Ho Lee’s transfer
of computer codes since March: "I think my choice of wording was poor.
What I should have said was I did not know of any specific instance of
espionage because I think we’ve been suspicious all along." Big Three
network coverage? NBC’s Claire Shipman noticed for 19 seconds.

June 27: Very Early Notification. Contradicting White House claims that they first learned of Chinese espionage in April 1996, The New York Times
reported the White House was told about Chinese nuclear thefts in July
1995, "soon after it was detected by the Energy Department and the
Central Intelligence Agency...interviews with current and former
officials show that warnings about possible Chinese nuclear espionage
received high-level attention within the Clinton administration early
in the government’s investigation of the matter." Fox Weekend Report led with the story, noting it had already reported on the shifting date story. Big Three network coverage? NBC Nightly News anchor Kelly O’Donnell noted it for 19 seconds.

June 29: Punishing Whistleblowers. Cameron revealed what went
on behind the scenes at a House Government Reform Committee hearing the
week before: "Democrats and Republicans say the secret testimony of
Energy Department counter-intelligence agent Bob Henson caught them
completely off-guard. Lawmakers are mum on the classified details which
sources say involve weapons labs, like Los Alamos, over the last five
years and may have been part of China’s nuclear espionage. The Energy
Department’s top spy catcher, who admits security cannot be guaranteed,
said he was unaware of his agent’s testimony until Fox News told him."

Cameron added this bit of intrigue: "At the exact time Defense
Department analyst Peter Leitner was telling Congress that his bosses
have in the past planted evidence in his desk to discredit him, over at
the Pentagon those supervisors were allegedly trying to get into his
computer without proper permission. A trail of e-mails obtained by Fox
News indicates that several Defense Department officials were involved.
Ultimately they did not gain access, but the Defense Threat Reduction
Agency has announced an investigation and pending the outcome Leitner’s
supervisor at the Pentagon has been transferred to another post.
Congress continues to investigate alleged reprisals and has subpoenaed
Leitner’s supervisors to explain their actions next week." Other
network coverage? Zero.

Conclusion: Who needs this scandal?

In the stories that do touch on Chinagate and the Cox Report,
network journalists have left the distinct impression that they’re
disappointed this story has to be done, that Chinese espionage has to
be made an issue on which this administration should be held
accountable.

On the November 17, 1987 Nightline, then-ABC reporter Jeff
Greenfield concluded his summary of the congressional Iran-Contra probe
by decrying the media’s expected failure to keep riding the Iran-Contra
story to the end with the same intensity it had shown for the previous
year: "The report also raises, unintentionally, another issue: the
attention span of the media and the American public. Within a few days,
this once-dominant story will most likely be shunted onto the back
pages of our newspapers. It is after all not about a sex or drug
scandal or dramatic crime. It is instead about how a great nation
defends its vital interests while keeping faith with its highest
values."

Those high-minded concerns apply just as well to the current
espionage fiasco. Has this administration defended our vital interests
or kept faith with our highest values? Is this administration’s need to
be held accountable for its actions on the world stage so much less
important than the Reagan administration? If the American public had a
better grasp of the outlines of this scandal, they too might ask: Where
are the networks?

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